Today marks the release of Sonic Frontiers, the open-world dedicated to the world of the famous swift hedgehog. An exit that worried since its announcement, and rightly so according to the specialized press.
[Mis à jour le 8 novembre 2022 à 10h49] Sonic celebrated his 30th birthday less than a year ago, a quite respectable age for a hedgehog, and even more so for a license from the video game world. However, three decades is a bit long, and that implies different attempts to renew the formula if one does not want his game to fall into oblivion. Sonic Frontiers is one, a brand new take on the young rodent universe straight out of SEGA Studios, who have attempted to bring the typical gameplay of Sonic games to the popular open world universe. Unfortunately, if the intentions are good, the resolution is much less so. Press reviews and all the info on the game is just below.
The press tests
So far, what’s coming out of the Sonic Frontiers reviews is pretty poor. The game culminates after 35 reviews at 74/100 on Metacritic, a score that places it just above Warner Bros. Games’ recent fiasco, Gotham Knights. The new open-world formula does not convince, trying too hard to imitate the success of recent games rather than insisting on the advantages of Sonic games. Although the idea of a complete overhaul of games from a thirty-year license is good, the finished product remains incomplete. At least that’s the opinion ofIGN who attributes to him 7/10 on PS5: “Sonic Frontiers is an ambitious open-world adventure that almost manages to overhaul the Sonic formula, even if some of its ideas fall flat.”
For gamekultthe catastrophe is not as great as expected: “The experience invited us to be skeptical, but in the end, Sonic Frontiers is far from being the expected catastrophe. By betting everything on exploration and the sequence of workshops, it succeeds in innovating but fails to offer a Sonic experience correct classic.” The French newspaper offers him a generous 6/10praising its efforts to bring the franchise back to the taste of the genre, but criticizing a technique not far from deplorable for a modern game.
At the house of GamesRadar+we are less lenient, with a score of 2/5 : “Sonic Frontiers has a light and engaging story, the kind that might appeal to fans young and old alike – but I’d hate to be a kid forced to play through the many terribly bad platforming sequences. Was it ambitious to make Sonic Frontiers an open world? Yes. Did it pay off in the end? Absolutely not.“Key point of this criticism, the frankly failed combat system and the sometimes very painful platforming phases, all carried by a technique that sometimes stings the eyes.
Sonic Frontiers trailer
Gameplay
Although the veil has not yet been fully lifted on the exact nature of the experience that will be Sonic Frontiers, SEGA has revealed some details about this adventure of a whole new kind: “A never-before-seen epic, accelerate to new heights and experience the thrill of open-world, high-speed freedom. Fight powerful enemies in the Starfall Islands, speeding through dense forests, overflowing waterfalls and barren deserts.” In short, Sonic Frontiers will offer us an experience based on exploration, combat, and a few puzzles and will integrate open-world functionalities. Well, not quite since it is rather mentioned “open-zones” on the game’s official website.
In any case, the gameplay images released by IGN as well as those that followed at Sonic Central and then at Gamescom 2022 gave us a good overview of what awaits Sonic in this new adventure. A gameplay based on speed, allowing our hero to cross huge areas populated by enemies, bosses, and stuffed with puzzles. We can welcome SEGA’s idea of providing us with an original game, while adapting to video game standards in 2022.
A game that worried?
Although the images shown at Gamescom 2022 reassured us, it was therefore on social networks that Frontiers made the most noise. Many netizens and fans have noted major issues with the gameplay footage shown by IGN and Sonic Central a few months ago, and with good reason. The featured images show major graphics and performance issues. Despite a relatively unimpressive universe (for the 2022 technique), we can clearly see big framerate drops and ubiquitous clipping in the game. We can also note the lack of personality of the open world of Sonic Frontiers which, if it assumes its inspiration from Breath of The Wild, certainly does not share its charm. The few combat sequences raise the bar slightly, but the concerns of Internet users seem justified for the moment. It remains to be seen whether SEGA will correct all this before the release.